Bertram is one of my most entertaining friends. He is from Sri Lanka. He is one year older than me. He is Catholic just like me and comes from a small town not too far from where I grew up, Hendala. We later found out we both worked for the same social movement founded by Cardinal Joseph Cardijn of Belgium—Young Christian Workers (YCW) and Young Christian Students (YCS). Bertram has worked as a full timer for YCW and Sri Lanka and I worked as a Part Timer for YCS Sri Lanka. We did not work for a salary, but for allowance to cover our transportation for work. Our work was entirely voluntary.
We are very close and in fact more than friends or brothers. We are those friends who understand each other without having to describe how we feel or what we are going through. How we met is a real story. We met in a most unimaginable place during those years—in 1988 in Pattaya, Thailand. This that story and more entertaining details.
In around 14th October 1988, my three-months visitor visa in Hong Kong expired and I had to leave the city. The closest alternative was Bangkok. I got a visa to Thailand and arrived in Bangkok. Then I was housed at a place called Rungsing Apartment, closer to Ramkhamheag area in Bangkok. And I used to travel to the Victory Monument (and learned how to say that in Thai those days, Anusawar Chai for short). The Jesuits were just by this busy junction where the Victory Monument is and I often travelled there to meet with Jim (not a man, but a small Thai girl whose long Thai name is Rungti Imrungruang) and her friends, including JuJu, Dan and a few others who gathered at the small student office near the Jesuit House there. And I did not have much to do and they did not know what to do with me! I was waiting for my work visa in Hong Kong to be approved. During this time, I visited various parts of Thailand with Jim and often with Fr. Chalerm Kitmongkol, who was the YCS Asian Chaplain prior to my term. But before I arrived in Bangkok, I often visited the YCW Asia Pacific Office in San Po Kong Area. I cannot explain where it is but know how to get there on foot from Lok Fu MTR Station. It was a difficult hike to get to the YCW office, which was housed in a real house on the ground, a rarity in Hong Kong filled with tall apartment buildings. There I met Sam (or Samydorai from Singapore), Wenilou (from the Philippines), Stephan (From Australia) and Susai (from India). When I was frequenting there, they told me about the forthcoming Asia-Pacific Council kind of gathering in Thailand and asked me to come and join them if I am going to be in Thailand. I shuttled between Bangkok and Chonburi and stayed some days at the Bishop’s House of Chanthaburi. I frequently met Bishop Lawrence Thienchai Samanchit those days when I was staying there and sometimes dined with him. He was a quiet and simple person. And it was when I was there I was reminded of upcoming YCW Council. They told me its going to be close to Chonburi. And someone drew me to the meeting place and then only I realized the name of the place was infamous Pattaya where the Redemptorist Fathers have built a fantastic retreat house.
I arrived in Pattaya in the evening of the opening ceremony of the YCW Council. And immediately, I met two Sri Lankans, Bertram Silva Candappa and Rev. Tissa Balasuriya, a leading progressive theologian in Asia.
While I have heard about Fr. Tissa in Sri Lanka due to his attempt to broker peace between conflicting parties in Sri Lanka, I have never met him. He was a controversial figure and the Catholic community had polarizing opinions about him. For conservative Catholics in Sri Lanka, he was strange and radical priest. Many years later, when he was excommunicated by the Vatican’s Pontifical Committee of the Doctrine of the Faith (at that time lead by Cardinal Ratzinger from Germany, who later became Pope Benedict) in around 1996, I was to lead an Internet-based campaign with Basil Fernando and the Asian Human Rights Commission to overturn the excommunication order, which did happen: It was for the first time in the history of Vatican that an excommunication order was quashed while the person who was excommunicated was still alive! It was a privileged time for me to spend much time to talk with this progressive, intellectual, wise man! I learned a lot and we became friends. At the end of the week-long training, Fr. Tissa asked me come and work for his Centre for Society and Religion in Maradana, Colombo, which I had to politely decline.
Bertram, I have not heard of him at all until we met. Instantly, we got along. He was such a bright and sharp mind. He was smart and strategic. While he could speak English, I felt more comfortable speaking English than I, so I ended up becoming his interpreter most of the time during the Council. We had so much fun. Why? because, Bertram is a natural entertainer. His vocabulary and articulation of situations in Sinhala was incomparable to anyone. He would say things that would keep you laughing for minutes. I was the shy and timid one. He was the brave and funny one. But we got along fine.
I still remember on one evening we had to perform a song or dance from Sri Lanka. While Bertram could sing and play guitar well, and could possibly sing any song, the foreigners there wanted us to sing Suraanganee song—which is about a young girl from a fishing village. The song talks about her dress, hair, and so on. While I hated this song, the foreigners at the Council wanted us to sing this. So we sang the song. Then they wanted us to translate the verses into English. That was not that easy. I do not where Fr. Tissa was because if we had difficulty we could have asked his help. But he was not around at that moment. And we began translating the song verse by verse. Betram would tell a line of the Sinhala version and I would translate the line into English. Then came the verse with relation to the saree-like cloth this young girl used to dress. When singing the song instead of saying Suraanganige lassana redda (Surangani’s beautiful cloth garment), we said the more funny and derogatory version—Suraanganige ammage redda (Suragani’s mother’s cloth garment). When it came to explaining this version, we got stuck. We did not know how to translate redda. At that moment Betram took the mike from my hand and told it means: Surangani’s mother’s bed sheet!! I burst out laughing, only he and I understood how bad we have translated it wrongly. Others were puzzled. I am glad they did not ask what it had to do with the bed sheet of the mother of Suraagani.
One evening, Betram and I were taken to the infamous Pattaya beach. We had Catholic nun from Australia who was dressed as a lay person, and a few others. We sat down at the bar section of the pub and saw the most shocking. There were some middle aged German tourists who were fondling almost under-aged young Thai girls who were working in the pub. Then a young Thai girl sat next to Bertram and I and we started talking with our limited English find out that she is one of the young sex workers. She told us she was 16. While talking a bit more and when we explained we are not there for those services but to learn about life of young Thais like her, she ended up telling more about their miserable life. Bertram and I were shocked. We were determined to get this girl out of this place. That night I could not sleep. I was exposed to one of the most cruel realities of trafficking and exploitation of young children. We came back and manage to contact some nuns in a Catholic convent who were running a shelter for such helpless young sex workers. Bertram and I went to the same pub the following day to inform the girl that some nuns would like to shelter her if she would like to come out. Obviously she was afraid to be caught if the plan did not work out. We passed the information of the pub and the girl to the nuns and left the mission in their hands. We had to leave Pattaya soon and did not know what happened. We hope the girl did the move and came to the nuns, or perhaps not. We were naively optimistic and utterly shocked!
Then our friendship continued. Bertram visited my family in Sri Lanka and he and my family became close as well. We visited each other’s families. Those days, there was no email to communicate. We primarily used letters. In an emergency we would call. Then calling was not easy too. Our homes did not have phones (and this was the land phone era before mobile phones and having a land phone was a status symbol in Sri Lanka). But one day, when I was in Hong Kong, I received a call from Bertram. I was happy and surprised. I knew it was expensive to call and asked him how he is afford to make such a call from Sri Lanka. And further, local domestic phone did not have international direct dialing (or IDD) facility. But Bertram told me, “don’t worry. We can talk any long as we want.” I was surprised and happy. We kept talking. Only after about 15 minutes he would tell me how was making the call. He has climbed up to a telephone pole and tapped the line that was connected to a foreign garment factory (which was actually using cheap labour, making young girls work long hours for a very little salary). He has befriended the telecommunication company technician who has the equipment to tap into the line. This was the most amusing phone call I have ever received in my life!
Bertram in Hong Kong
Bertram is one of the most luckiest and determined persons on earth. I remember he relating to me an near-fatal accident he survived. He and another friend were travelling on a motorcycle late night on Negombo road and met a car hit them head on and both of them suffered serious injury. And I think the accident was fatal for his friend but he went into a coma and was put into a life support system. Later on, luckily he woke up from the coma and survived near-fatal head injuries.
When I was in Hong Kong, during around 1991/1992 period, Betram called me and let me know that he arrived in Hong Kong. I was very happy but at the same time worried as to his plans. He arrived on a tourist visa and was hired by a Sri Lankan man in Tsim Sha Tsui who was running a cheap hostel named Victoria Hostel. He worked day and night to earn a living at the Hostel. I think the Sri Lankan man was married to a Chinese woman and was very strict on Bertram. Bertram has instincts to survive any place on earth—he is so talented and determined. During this time, I met him a few times. He virtually had not free time and managed to meet me during few hours of rest he got during the work week. And the Sri Lankan man-boss of him did not want him to contact anyone in Hong Kong so he had to keep my relationship to him secret. A number of times Bertram came to the apartment I was then living in To Kwa Wan and we had meals together also with Fr. Leo Perera. I also introduced Bertram to another Sri Lankan man named Siri who survived near death by Government run para-military vigilante death squads during 1989-90 JVP insurrection.
Slowly, he three-month visa came to an end. He and I planned how to get it renewed. I only knew one cheap way, cross the border to China and return. And I knew one youth hostel in Guangzhou. I do not know why I did not know how to do this by just crossing over to Shenzhen. Perhaps because I never went to Shenzhen, but rather straight to Guangzhou by train during my first trip to Mainland China and Beijing in early 1991. I told Bertram the address of the youth hostel near the prestigious While Swan Hotel in Guangzhou. On his last day of the visitor visa, Betram took off to China. One winder night, he made through the border by KCR through Lo Wu and then managed to hire a car to make the 2-hour so journey to the Youth Hostel. He then stayed there for a few days. It was during this time he discovered a cheap but magical soup. Of course he did not speak Chinese but he saw a restaurant and a lot of people there were ordering soup. It was cheap and people seems to like it. So he ordered one and tried it. Tasted good and had a few bowls of soup as it was cheap. So during his few days at the youth hostel, he kept having this soup. Only later he would realize that he was having winter delicacy in southern China—snake soup. Betram did not have much winter clothes but he found he did not feel cold. It was the effect of snake soup on him! After a few days he arrived at the Lo Wu border and confronted the Hong Kong Immigration, which was suspicious about his coming back to Hong Kong. The HKID knew there are persons like Bertram who come to HKG for short stints of work for three to six months. They asked him what he was doing in Hong Kong during last three months. Bertram acted like he was from a rich family travelling around and told the HKID officer that he just lived there enjoying HKG and spending money. The officer did not believe and asked him whether he has money. Of course, he had money earned during last three months and he showed the office money also the gold necklace he was wearing to demonstrate he was well off. The office was still very suspicious and told him, he would not issue him with another three months of tourist visa but a week-long visa only. Bertram took it easy and did not plead with the officer. He looked the officer in the eyes and told him, “I don’t care, how long I would stay. You just give me the damn visa.” The officer put the visa stamp his passport and Bertram knew things did not go right he had to leave HKG soon. He took the passport and got on to the KCR train in Lo Wu. He sat on the train and looked at his passport to find out that the officer has stamped a 3-months’ visitor visa on it! So, he ended up staying and working another three months. That was, I think Winter-Spring of 1992.
Bertram at DIMO
After that we kept in touch occasionally. Betram fell in love with a girl named Surangi from Kandy. Surangi had the same surname as mine—Liyanage. She was Sinhalese, Buddhist, taller than him. He was Catholic and had a Tamil surname, although he was brought up as a Sinhalese. But anyone who look at his surname would say he was Tamil or Colombo Chetty. So he had to overcome various issues, including initial opposition from the family of Surangi to the Catholic parish where he wanted to get married. He (like me) went through hell with the Catholic priest to arrange this mix-religious wedding at the Catholic church. He got married and later started working for DiMo Engineering company (which was incidentally owned by my distant relative uncle who lived in Aluthmawatha). DiMo were the only importer and agent in Sri Lanka then for Mercedes-Benz. So, I was told that my uncle would arrange to have a Benz car during weddings of my mother and her sisters, in 1960s and 1970s, which was a big deal then. I used visit Bertram at his office near Union Place when I was on visiting Sri Lanka during mid 1990s.
Bertram also knew how to fix anything: from a radio to a TV to a car. So he would fix the TV whenever it breakdown by finding the small parts on the electronic circuit inside the TV set. He knew electrical engineering and electronics. He was an excellent automobile mechanic too. All in all, he was full of talent and knowhow.
A call from Madras
Then, many year later, in around 2003 or 2004, I again received a call from Bertram. He told me that he was in trouble and someone has promised a passage to the US and then cheated him. He has been a victim of a Nigerian human trafficker. He has paid over 20,000USD to this man who arranged to get a US visa on his passport and then bring him to Alaska. He sold all property he had, borrowed money from everyone he knew and paid the 20,000USD. Then the man took him and a few others to Madras and checked him into a hotel there. Next day, the Nigerian disappeared. Bertram was on a really hot soup. He could not go back to Sri Lanka due to the debts. He was determined to make his way to the US. But how? His “trusted agent” has disappeared. He sought my help. I connected him with a lawyer friend in Bangalore to see what my Indian friend could do for him. And I know nothing really happened through my friend Bertram went through hell India and finally decided to return to Sri Lanka to face the bleak reality!
Life in the seas
After struggling to pay debts due to human traffickers, Betram finally managed to find a job as an electrical engineer in a commercial ship. Yes, Bertram was sailing. He used to call me from the middle of the ocean, somewhere no where, when he had Internet connection and was free. When I saw his photos, he looked really like a sailor. When he was in between long sea trips, I managed to be in Sri Lanka. It was 16th December 2017 and I was leaving by a van with Karen and Marie to go to Kandy. I called Bertram and he told me that he could meet on my way to Kandy near Pattiya handiya in Kelaniya by the Kandy Road. And here he was when I reached there. We had a chat by the road, bid farewell again to each other. I went to Kandy and he sailed on a ship that night.
One and only Betram
No matter what happened Bertram never gave up. His trait is not giving up. He is the ultimate survivor. He also has a strong stroke of luck following him–that in most unfortunate moments in his life he managed to overcome them and survive.
Bertram is the ultimate entertainer. Even in a middle of a great tragedy, he could make a joke and make others smile. That is Bertram. He was a musician and a singer too. His humour was unique and spontaneous and instantaneous. His choice of wording to make a joke out of particular situation was special and unique. Not just choice of words but arranging those words in a way no one could do.
And Bertram enjoyed life. He entertained others quite naturally. But he also entertained himself. He knew how to live happily with whatever he has.